Mermaids and mermen

This year's climate conference had a lot of side-events about gender. Gender is about women and men, not their biological differences, but the differences in for example their roles, their needs, their rights and their access to decision making.

FCAM side event, Marrakech 2016

Climate change affects women differentlyThe poorest people of this world are hit the hardest by climate change, because most effects of climate change can be seen in poor tropical countries. Poor people have little or no means to restore after losing their harvest, home or family. They have no savings and no insurances. Of the poorest, a majority is female. Therefore women are affected worse by climate change.

In addition, women and men feel climate change in different ways. For example, less rain means women and girls have to walk longer distances to fetch water, which is often their task. Girls have less time to go to school or do their homework. Sometimes women have to walk 4 hours a day to fetch water.

In the climate treaty of 1992, which was followed by the Kyoto protocol, this gender aspect was not taken into account at all. It did not mention people at all, let alone men and women. It only mentioned todays and future generations.

Later on, gender became a topic in the climate process, culminating in a working program about gender that was introduced on the conference in Lima in 2014. There were a workshop and a report. Here in Marrakech, this working program was prolonged for another 3 years and an action plan will be set up.

Gender needs more than just ticking the boxBut is this going to help? In one of the many side events I heard someone say that gender often is added in the end: "Ticked the box, done, that's it."If you really want to take the differences between men and women into account, if you want to make sure that both men's and women's are heard in decisions about their land, their future and climate actions, you have to ask them what they need. Women have to be involved in the decisions that affect them.

Because women have other roles and tasks than men, like for example producing food crops for their families, picking the seeds for next year, making traditional medicine from herbs and plants, they have other knowledge than men. This knowledge can be a crucial element for climate action. This is a second reason to listen to women more often.

Are we all mermaids?

Last week I was also invited to attend the 'high level event for women leaders'. There, I would meet strong and powerful women, like Hilda Heine, president of the Marshall Islands, UN's clean energy champion Rachel Kyte, and Mary Robinson, Ireland's former president and now leading her own Foundation focusing on huan rights and climate justice.

In addition to the inspiring words of these female leaders, we were also shown a video with a beautiful long-haired woman, lying esthetically in the forest, on the beach, on the drawing table... But: do I notice a fishtail there? What is the message of this video? We shall all be mermaids?

The woman next to me explained: because we women are caretakers, we are connected to the fate of the earth. In our bodies, we feel the pain the earth also feels.

Mary Robinson

Boom! Suddenly I woke up. Women the caretakers? Isn't that one of those gender roles that is imposed upon us? My husband is a good caretaker as well. Will he also get a fishtail now? I was confused.

Connected to earthI believe that all human beings - women and men, are connected tot he earth. Dutch scientist André Kuipers flew to the moon, saw our beautiful blue planet from space and felt terrible. He realized that he needed to be on earth, the ecosystem that we belong in as humans. Women and men. We can't live without the earth.

So let's take good care of the earth and of ourselves, of mermaids and mermen.

Read more about this subject

Clive Chibule from Zambia won the Gender Just Climate Solutions Award at the climate conference in Katowice, Poland. His project "Community strategies for climate-resilient livelihoods" aims at training rural women on leadership and climate resilience. A very important project, as Zambia is already feeling the effects of climate change, and rural women are affected most.

This paper by Prakriti Resources Center (Nepal) sheds light on the gender and climate change nexus, gender mainstreaming as a tool to address gender inequality, gender and climate change policy landscape both at international and national level, gaps and way forward.

From 7 to 18 november, the Climate Change COP22 will take place in Marrakech, Morrocco. This '22nd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)' as it is called officially, is the annual meeting of the 195 countries which have signed and ratified the convention.

Small grants funds offer an effective, alternative way to channel big money from large donors and funds to local groups and organisations that are striving for a sustainable and just society everywhere around the world.

Both ENDS' Niels Hazekamp and Daan Robben are joining the Climate CoP in Bonn to actively follow the negotiations, with a special focus on certain topics such as subsidies and support for fossil fuels, climate finance, climate adaptation, and gender. Both ENDS also co-organises a side event together with the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

Local organisations and groups must be given access to climate finance from the Green Climate Fund. They know exactly what is happening in their local context and what is required for climate adaptation.

Although outgoing economics minister Henk Kamp stated in May of this year that fossil fuels are not subsidised in the Netherlands, a report out today shows that this is clearly not the case. The report. ‘Phase-Out 2020: Monitoring Europe’s fossil fuel subsidies’, by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and Climate Action Network Europe (CAN-Europe), says that the Netherlands is supporting the fossil sector at home and abroad with more than 7.6 billion euros a year (1). The Netherlands made international agreements as long ago as 2009 (2) to ban subsidies for fossil fuels. Environment NGO Milieudefensie and Both ENDS – both members of CAN-Europe – call attention to these findings because they find it unacceptable that the government perpetuates our dependence on fossil fuels in this way.

The Dutch pension fund, ABP, invested about two billion euros more in the fossil energy industry at the end of 2016 than the year before. This is announced by the report "Dirty & Dangerous: the fossil fuel investments of Dutch pension fund ABP," published today by Both ENDS, German urgewald and Fossielvrij NL. The report criticizes these investments because of the impact on the climate and the catastrophic consequences for the people in the areas where coal, oil and gas are being produced.

Every 10 years, the mandate and activities of 'Export Development Canada' (EDC), the Canadian export credit agency, are reviewed. Since the last review took place in 2008, another review is currently underway. Both ENDS and a couple of other CSOs working from a number of countries made a joint submission as formal input to the legislative review. We did this especially in light of the Canadian governments' ambition to show leadership on climate change and to prioritise climate change action and clean economic growth.

A Dutch economic trade mission is visiting Indonesia from the 21st to the 24th of November. Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who heads the mission, is accompanied by Minister Ploumen (Foreign Trade and Development), Minister Schultz van Haegen and State Secretary Dijksma (Infrastructure and Environment).

Since the nineties, the production of red bush tea in South Africa has grown enormously: over 4500 people now live off of tea production. Red bush can only be grown in South Africa because of its unique ecosystem. The entire world market for red bush tea depends on South Africa. However, climate change causes increasing heat and drought which endangers red bush production. The Environmental Monitoring Group (EMG) from Cape Town - a Both ENDS partner - supports farmers who aim to develop sustainable production techniques.

Take yourself on a trip back in time. Go to Mar del Plata, Argentina, in the year 1977. A high profile international conference is taking place under the auspices of the United Nations, full of hope and burdened with lofty aims. In that year, only 20% of the world's rural population in developing countries had access to safe drinking water.

Rich Forests promotes a sustainable and future-proof production system and supports, among other things, the transformation of degraded land into food forests. With this, people provide for their livelihood, increase their income and at the same time restore soil and biodiversity.

On Wednesday, November 14, Dutch Newspaper De Volkskrant published a joint op-ed by Both ENDS, Hivos, Greenpeace Netherlands and Witness about the deforestation in the Amazon region which is still going on rapidly, having disastrous consequences for the indigenous people who live in the area, for biodiversity and for the climate. The Netherlands is one of the largest buyers of Brazilian agricultural products such as soy and beef, and should ensure that deforestation, land grabbing and human rights violations do not occur in these production chains. Unfortunately, this is not at all the case yet.

Our mission

Together with environmental justice groups from the Global South, Both ENDS works towards a sustainable, fair and inclusive world. We gather and share information about policy and investments that have a direct impact on people and their livelihood, we engage in joint advocacy, we stimulate the dialogue between stakeholders and we promote and support sustainable local alternatives.